1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method for electronically processing and managing a plurality of types of telecommunications invoices.
2. Background Art
The traditional manual methods of collecting, reviewing and paying vendors' invoices, especially periodic invoices, e.g., telecommunications and utility bills, are a manual process. These methods impose substantial difficulties for users having large volumes of such invoices.
One format designed to bring uniformity to these invoices is the electronic data interchange (EDI) standard. EDI is the direct communication of trading messages between computer systems using national and international telecommunications networks. EDI transaction files can be as basic as orders and invoices, but EDI can also develop into a much more sophisticated information exchange so that trading partners may manage their whole supply chain more effectively. Key elements in EDI are the application software at either end of the exchange, linked to EDI message handling software that is in turn linked to a communications network.
While the EDI standard is very flexible to accommodate various types of transactions and businesses, this variety provides difficulties in the audit function, as vendor files differ in their implementation of the EDI standard.
Another format designed to bring ease of information exchange between businesses is the extensible markup language (XML) standard. XML 1.0 was released in February 1998. XML is now viewed as the standard way information will be exchanged in environments that do not share common platforms.
While the XML standard is very flexible to accommodate various types of transactions and businesses, this variety provides difficulties in the audit function, as vendor invoice files differ in their implementation of the XML standard.
Presently, there are a few similar inventions. One type of solution is MBG's (New York, N.Y.) solution for telecommunications providers, iBillManager®. It is a web-based billing system that enables telecom carriers to present invoices electronically over the Internet or corporate intranet. While the solution is also web based and presents telecom invoices and the detail, it is presented from the view of one provider and is not designed to present invoices from multiple telecommunications providers. The solution also does not provide any audit capability.
Another is type of solution is call accounting software. Veramark's (Pittsford, N.Y.) solution for Web-based call accounting software is eCAS®. Call accounting software extracts call detail records from the user's phone hardware to analyze telecommunications usage. This information does not directly tie back to the vendors billing due. This information can be used to analyze and audit inter-company expenses but it doesn't analyze vendor invoices for errors. It also doesn't support the entire telecommunications infrastructure because it is limited to only inbound and outbound voice traffic and only on traffic that runs through the user's hardware.